Funny, Ha Ha...

 

 (themoviedb.org)

RUMOURS-2024-Horror comedy political satire with the leaders (including Cate Blanchett and Charles Dance) of the 7 democratic nations meeting at the G7 conference and getting lost in a forest. They later encounter a woman who rants about “the night queen” and a giant brain and occasionally zombies. It all seems to be the work of some AI child predator tracker. Bloated nonsense, lost in some hidden rhetoric only the 3 directors (including Guy Maddin) may understand.

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Big Brain

 

(imdb)

THE BRAIN-1988-A woman, Vicki is attacked by some tentacles after her teddy bear has stigmata but it turns out to be an illusion. When she thinks her boyfriend is being attacked, she accidentally kills him. Then she's pushed out a window by what looks like a brain. Some moron pretend bad boy James (Tom Bresnahan) who has good grades but is a wise ass joker gets what's coming to him when he's sent to the clinic of Dr. Blake (REANIMATOR's David Gale), the host of TV's “Independent Thinking”. James' girlfriend Janet (Cyndy Preston) is pretty smart though. She doesn't want to have sex with him. Blake hooks James up to a machine that is connected to a giant brain. He sees Blake's female assistant topless and then a scary monster. Blake is using the brain to hypnotize his TV audience. When the assistant complains, the brain eats her. Meantime, James loses control of his car when a tentacle comes out of the steering wheel. He goes crazy in a fast food place and Blake's male assistant (George Buza) takes him back to the institute where he sees Blake talking to the brain which now has evil eyes and fangs! Janet and his friend Willie (Brent Pearson) break into the place to save him. Poor Willie is eaten by the brain. The assistant decapitates a cop but James & Janet get the blame. Meanwhile, the brain gets bigger and its broadcasts make a woman chainsaw her husband. The teen fugitives hide out in their high school and have sex. When Janet watches a broadcast, she turns against James. After a big car chase, he returns to the institute where its discovered Blake is an alien trying to take over the world. James & Janet confront the brain after it eats the male assistant. It seems to end happily but…?? 

Satirical low budget horror movie doesn't take itself too seriously and I think it was influenced by THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS. The James character is not much of a hero though. Filmed in Canada by Ed Hunt (STARSHIP INVASIONS).

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Satire In Wolf's Clothing

 

 (imdb)

WEREWOLF OF WASHINGTON-1973-Reporter Jack Whittier (Dean Stockwell) is having an affair with Marion (Jane House), the president's daughter. He wants to break it off, so he asks his paper to transfer him to Budapest. He has a car accident and while looking for his girlfriend Giselle (Katalin Kallay), kills a wolf and is wounded in the process. It turns out he killed a gypsy woman's son, a werewolf (sound familiar?). Whittier doesn't believe the gypsy (Despo Diamantidou) when she says he will become a werewolf. He thinks it's a government plot. A police bureaucrat (Thayer David) makes them leave. Back in the US, the president hires him as press secretary. Whittier becomes a werewolf when the moon is full. His first victim is the talkative Mrs. Captree (Nancy Andrews). Then he kills a newspaper publisher. 

Michael Dunn is wasted as a mad scientist named Dr. Kiss.

It's supposed to be a horror comedy-political satire but it's not very funny. Writer-director Milton Moses Ginsberg made COMING APART with Rip Torn in 1969 but after WEREWOLF he only made a few short films

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2 Downeys for the Price of One

 

 (imdb)

CHAFED ELBOWS-1966-Dismore (George Morgan), a moron who is having an affair his mother (Elsie Downey), gets involved with a lot of weird people in this underground hit made by Robert Downey Sr. using still photos, post-synced dialogue and one short color scene. Very much a product of its time, some of the dialogue is clever but dated. Downey's wife plays all the female parts. Doesn't even try to hide the fact it's sub low budget. Just goes with it.

 (imdb)

BABO 73-1964-Nonsensical black & white low budget political satire about Sandy Sudsbury (Taylor Mead), the newly elected President of the United Status. He tackles the cold war, racial discrimination and two-faced politicians. Some of the dialogue is funny. Written, produced and directed by Robert Downey Sr. I'm sure this and CHAFED ELBOWS (see above) influenced John Waters. Taylor Mead was in many early Andy Warhol shorts.

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Lookwell

 

 (tv tropes)

LOOKWELL-1991-Former TV detective Ty Lookwell (Adam West) lives in his own world where he still thinks he's a police detective. He runs an acting school for William Shatner wannabes all revolving around his short lived TV show "Bennigan" which people confuse with other TV shows like "Banacek". He tries to solve a case of stolen cars and messes up everything. 

LOOKWELL was a TV pilot co-written and co-produced by Conan O'Brien. It's pretty amusing but I don't think it would have worked as a weekly series. 

Directed by EW Swackhamer, a veteran TV director who worked on lots of TV shows since the early '60's.

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Tomato

 

 (imdb)

TOMATOS ANOTHER DAY-1930-In this subversive, ahead of its time avant-garde short film, a woman and her lover part. He leaves his hat. The woman plays solitaire and her husband comes home. While kissing her he finds the hat. He asks if a man has been here. She says no. Then when he asks who that was who just left, she says it was her lover. He doesn't seem perturbed by this and they kiss again. The lover comes back for his hat. More senseless dialogue is spouted with phrases like the title and "cigarette life". It ends in a shooting. 

The acting and dialogue are terrible on purpose as it's supposed to be a satire on "talking pictures". It was screened only once in public and no one got the joke and it's easy to see why. The director James Sibley Watson had made a silent version of “Fall Of The House Of Usher” in 1928. He made one more short film after TOMATOS, LOT IN SODOM in 1933. You can read more about him here:

ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Sibley_Watson

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Well, It's Shorter Than Renaldo and Clara...

MASKED AND ANONYMOUS-2003-In a war torn fictitious country ruled by a dying dictator, a crooked music promoter Uncle Sweetheart (John Goodman) plans a big musical benefit to aid the impoverished country but actually wants to keep all the proceeds for himself and pay off his debts. Unfortunately the only performer he can get is a once famous but now forgotten rock star Jack Fate (Bob Dylan) who's in prison. He's let out and goes by bus to perform. It turns out Jack was born and raised there and was childhood friends with the low life who plans to take over when the dictator dies (Mickey Rourke). Another musician Bobby Cupid (Luke Wilson) who joins Jack and his band "Simple Twist of Fate" (Dylan's real band) says he has a guitar that belonged to Blind Lemon Jefferson.

Meanwhile Sweetheart's wife?/girlfriend?/sister? Nina (Jessica Lange) insults him, complains, smokes a lot and cries. A government agent (Bruce Dern) sends a reporter (Jeff Bridges) to spy on the activities. He's accompanied by his religiously bent wife (Penelope Cruz). Other characters include an animal handler (Val Kilmer), a performer friend of Fate's father (Ed Harris in black face), a government whore (Angela Bassett), Christian Slater as a roadie, Fred Ward as a drunk and Cheech Marin in one scene with Dylan whose character mainly listens to others spouting their philosophy and has very little actual dialogue (he narrates much of it though). I didn't expect the violent ending. 

The film was written by Dylan and Larry Charles, both using pseudonyms. Charles was a former writer/producer for SEINFELD who later worked on a lot of TV shows (CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, THE TICK, DILBERT, ENTOURAGE) and directed nonsense like BORAT and BRUNO.  

Miller and Corman

A BUCKET OF BLOOD-1959-Nebbish busboy Walter Paisley (Dick Miler) works in a beatnik club and  wants to be a sculptor but everyone just puts him down. Only Carla (Barboura Morris) is nice to him. One night frustrated by his lack of inspiration, he accidentally kills his landlady's cat. A voice tells him what to do. He encases the dead feline in clay and passes it off as his newest creation called "dead cat".  All the Beats go wild over it especially Maxwell Brock (Julian Burton) a pompous poet who says lines like "I will talk to you about art because there's nothing else to talk about" while Paul Horn plays the sax behind him. Later Walter accidentally kills an undercover cop (future game show host Burt Convy) who tries to arrest him for heroin possession (a waitress gave it to him). He then covers the corpse with clay and presents "murdered man" as his latest work of art. Meanwhile Walter's boss Mr. de Santis (Anthony Carbone) discovers his secret and is aghast but when an art collector (Bruno VeSota) offers him 600 dollars for the cat he relents turning Walter in (he also tries to dissuade Walter from sculpting).

Later Walter dons a beret, ascot and cigarette holder but while being praised by Brock, a stuck up model (Judy Bamber) pisses him off and later he strangles her and makes her his latest sculpture. Brock throws a party for Walter where he becomes very drunk and despondent ("I've gotta do something before they forget") so he decapitates a guy working with a buzz saw. The next day he shows de Santis his newest creation: a severed head. Eventually his guilt ridden boss has an exhibition for Walter who proposes to Carla but she rejects him. When she discovers a real finger under under some of the clay Walter decides to make her "immortal" like the rest of his victims. After a dark chase scene Walter (who hears the voices of his victims) goes back to his apartment and hangs himself. This causes Brock to remark "I suppose he would have called it "hanging man". His greatest work.". Ed Nelson (who died on August 9th at age 85) plays an undercover cop.

A BUCKET OF BLOOD  was Roger Corman's first (intentional) comedy. It's a dark satire on the beatnik hip but  nihilistic  viewpoint, very in vogue at the time. It's obviously done on the usual money saving Corman schedule (sources say 5 days on $50,000 budget) but he holds it together fairly well. The one glaring point for me is that it seems at the end Walter wants to encase himself in clay before committing suicide but that doesn't really happen. There's lots of funny dialogue and Dick Miller is great in the lead. He'd have a co-starring role in 1960 in Corman's next horror comedy THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (which BUCKET screenplay writer Charles Griffith would write).

Barboura Morris had already been in several Corman productions (SORORITY GIRL, TEENAGE CAVEMAN) and would appear in a few more (THE WASP WOMAN, X:THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES). Unfortunately she died in 1975 at the age of 43. Anthony Carbone would be in a few more for Corman (including THE BEAST FROM THE HAUNTED SEA) and then go into TV.

A BUCKET OF BLOOD  is cheap quick entertaining and a good companion piece for THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORROS (although not nearly as well known...).

English folk singer Ewan MacColl (father of singer Kristy MacColl) appears un-credited and sings two songs.

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Swinging Around London With Pete and Sam

SALT AND PEPPER-1968-Swinging London nightclub owners Charles Salt (Sammy Davis Jr.) and Christopher Pepper (Peter Lawford) become involved in espionage when 2 British secret agents are killed in their club. Sammy does a very '60's psychedelic number called "I Like The Way You Dance" with Go Go dancers while playing a guitar. Michael Bates is the stupid Inspector Crabbe who believes the team is to blame. The duo (who seem to be smoking in every scene) say lots of hip humorous lines (with some racial humor and jokes concerning the words "fag" and "boy") and get shot at while driving around in Salt's weird car that has some Aston Martin like gadgets. They go to a barber shop and somehow wind up on nuclear submarine and discover a plot to overthrow the English government.

Also with Iilona Rodgers, Graham Stark, Calvin Lockhart and Jeremy Lloyd. This seems to be influenced by the Matt Helm series, I SPY (which Salt makes a reference to), THE MAN FROM UNCLE and even GET SMART. Director Richard Donner went on to bigger things but around this time he was making "Danger Island" segments for THE BANANA SPLITS TV show.

It's a strange mixture of comedy, action, violence and drama written by Michael Pertwee, brother of Dr. Who's Jon Pertwee. Lawford had a role in Otto Preminger's bomb SKIDOO the same year. Both he and Davis were executive producers. It ends with the words: It's Over. But they actually made a sequel in 1970 called ONE MORE TIME (directed by Jerry Lewis!).

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Stink-A-Roo

SKIDOO-1968-Otto Preminger directed this all-star stink bomb of a movie that tries to be a satire on the ‘60’s Hippie and drug culture and a comedy. It fails in both departments.

Former hit man Jackie Gleason is recruited by Caesar Romero and Frankie Avalon to assassinate a gangster (Mickey Rooney) turning state’s evidence. While in jail he gets help from Frank Gorshin, Michael Considine and Richard Kiel. He also accidentally ingests LSD and has a weird trip. Groucho Marx (in his last film role) is God, leader of the crime syndicate. George Raft is the captain of the ship he hides out on. Carol Channing is Gleason’s wife who sings. Arnold Stang is his friend who’s killed at the beginning. Also appearing: Peter Lawford, Burgess Meridith, Slim Pickens, Fred Clark, John Phillip Law and Austin Pendelton. Harry Nilsson (who also has a cameo) sings the end credits!

Screenwriter Doran William Cannon later wrote BREWSTER MCCLOUD and a TV adaptation of BRAVE NEW WORLD. Otto made this between BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING and TELL ME THAT YOU LOVE ME, JULIE MOON when his once great career was in a tailspin. He’d played the villain “Mr. Freeze” on an episode of TV’s BATMAN in 1966. I’ve read Preminger took LSD while making this movie. He must have been on something…

Apparently this has not been released on DVD (or VHS). One day it may escape!

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Living TV

THE TWONKY-1953-While his wife is away philosophy teacher Carey West (Hans Conried) sees his life turned upside down by his new TV set. It starts off by lighting his pipe and cigarettes and eventually gets him involved with The US Treasury! It walks around his house and cleans up, opens coke bottles and even gives him a shave and shines his shoes, eventually running (and ruining) his whole life. The weird and kind of annoying college football coach (William H. Lynn) tries to help out and the TV (now dubbed Twonky) hypnotizes them.

Writer/producer/director Arch Oboler was behind THE TWONKY. He was best known for creating the radio series “Lights Out!” and made around a dozen movies between 1945-1972 including the post nuclear war themed FIVE and BWANA DEVIL (the first feature length 3-D movie).

Although this comedy/satire seems ripe for cult status I was disappointed. It’s dated and not very well made and the acting is pretty bland despite Conried in the lead. He’d star in another cult classic the same year though, THE 5000 FINGERS OF DR. T.

RIP-Irene Kaelin-1921-2010